Graduation Denied
by
Alan Baker will have a graduation story that few seniors get to tell.
In the course of a few short weeks, he witnessed an alleged crime. He helped a buddy. He did the right thing by notifying the police. He flirted with the possibility of not graduating with the rest of his senior class.
This story orbits around the Robertson County Juvenile Justice system, where ostensibly, Alan is just another number in the proverbial avalanche of cases the county has to deal with.
Springfield Police reports indicate that it all starts on March 10th at Springfield H.S. That’s when detectives tell Messed Up a student comes up to Alan and offers to sell the 18 year old a stolen CD player.
“I said no. I don’t want to buy it,” Alan Baker tells me, fidgeting ever so slightly as a teenage boy is apt to do. “I said where did you get it. He said he stole it out of Dustin’s truck. I said Ok. And he walked off.”
It turns out that Dustin is a good friend of Alan Baker, who tells his buddy that he had better check his vehicle in the school parking lot.
Sure enough, Dustin’s stereo had been stolen.
“My buddy came down and I told him what happened and he filed a police report,” Alan says.
Alan’s father, Bruce tells me that he advised his son to do the right thing, even if it meant going down to the police station close to midnight to give his statement to detectives, which is exactly what Alan had to do.
“Alan is at work, when a detective in Springfield P.D. called him and asked him to come down and make a statement. He told the detective, he works till 10:30 pm. The detective said that is fine, So around midnight, we filled out a statement.”
Alan’s dad, Bruce is energetic as he recounts the story to that is Messed Up.
“So a few days later, he gets a subpoena. And he says dad, the subpoena is the same day as my graduation.”
I can’t help myself as I interject.
“OH, OH. Red flags!”
The elder Baker laughs.
“I am like I can take care of this. I will call Juvenile court. This should not be a problem.”
“Right,” I exclaim. “I mean your kid is the hero in this story.”
Bruce Baker nods affirmatively. “Yes, and he is doing the right thing. So I said i can fix it. So I make Phone calls. Nobody calls me back. A Few days go by. Nothing happens. I call up again. Nothing. I get More assertive. I say look, He is graduating this day, and surely we can change his day in court. Is there nothing you can do? And she says no we can’t change the schedule. And I say; This is Robertson County Juvenile Court and this is Robertson County graduation day, surely you can do something. Then she hits me with; we don’t work around people’s social schedules. And I said this is not a social schedule. So I gave up.”
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